


and still i will live here

by moonbeatblues



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/F, i'm in a yashter mood it's fun!!, just something soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-02-23 09:28:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23009317
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moonbeatblues/pseuds/moonbeatblues
Summary: “we could kiss, if you like.”“what?”“i don’t know— i thought it might make you feel better. it always did, with zuala, for me.” her eyes track all over jester’s stricken face. “maybe i’m wrong. maybe it was a foolish idea.”and yeah, she doesn’t see how it would help, but still the words come sluicing out of her, “no, yeah, we should. definitely. yes.”(jester and yasha have a talk)
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Beauregard Lionett/Yasha, Jester Lavorre/Yasha
Comments: 9
Kudos: 165





	and still i will live here

**Author's Note:**

> title from i will by mitski- i'm a simply gay, i hear the phrase "take care of you" i put it in my m9 playlists
> 
> i also have a Big soft spot for yashter like.. every interaction they have is so soft and loving??

they go to uthodurn, of all places, for winter’s crest.

(“me and momma don’t celebrate it,” jester had said. “i mean, she’d be happy to have us, but there are just so many people in the chateau right now, you know?”)

that isn’t to say she’s the one who votes for uthodurn— something about the idea makes her feel a little prickly, all over, and she doesn’t really know why until beau gets quiet and flushed a little and says she wouldn’t mind going there.

then, she thinks she gets it.

—

“i didn’t know beau was— you know. with her.”

she startles at that, how noiselessly yasha can approach, for someone who takes up so much space and even more with her presence, when she means to.

“she’s not!” she hugs her knees a little tighter to her chest as yasha drops to sit beside her on the ledge outside the inn, looking out over the liber disk as lights snuff out and others, smaller clusters of night life, un-snuff. “at least, i don’t think so. not really.”

“no?”

yasha looks at her honestly, waiting for a response, and suddenly she feels stupid, the tips of her ears burning. beau’s out, right now, heading to reani’s house this late at night, and she’s just sitting out here. she’s awake, and here, and beau’s looking for someone else.

“maybe.” this time, her voice comes out ragged at the edges, a dredged-up whisper. “they kissed once, before we said goodbye. maybe more than once.”

“does it make you sad?” yasha’s eyebrows pull together, and panic flares bright in her head like a firework.

“what? no. no, of course not.”

yasha says nothing, for a moment, and then looks away.

“it is okay if it does. it makes me sad, a little.”

“oh,” and she thinks on that.

“we could kiss, if you like.”

“ _what_?”

“i don’t know— i thought it might make you feel better. it always did, with zuala, for me.” her eyes track all over jester’s stricken face. “maybe i’m wrong. maybe it was a foolish idea.”

and yeah, she doesn’t see how it would help, but still the words come sluicing out of her, “no, yeah, we should. definitely. yes.”

“okay, um—”

and there’s a long second where they just look at each other.

“give me a second,” jester says, and takes the moment of shifting to let herself blush furiously, feels it unfurl like a fern across her face. she turns so she’s facing yasha and a little bit away from the ledge, legs tucked under her, lost in the circular spread of her skirts on the ground. her knees bump a little against yasha’s.

“are you okay, jester?”

yasha peers at her— she looks a little like a barn owl, sometimes, jester thinks, a pale face with dark, dark eyes. the tattoo running from her lower lip down her neck is stark, against the near-white of her skin— she thinks, for a moment, about having the same tattoo as someone. she thinks of what yasha had told her about zuala, about the funny little hearts she’d tattooed for nott and yeza. they’re not the same, but she thinks, too, about hers and beau’s, done in the same hand, glittering with crushed-up magic.

yasha blinks at her, strangely delicate. gosh, she really is pretty— she gets it, you know, why beau likes her and all. the distant sounds of life in the city below seem to drop off, to simply stop being.

“i, um, i—” her heart hasn’t beat this fast in a long time. since the dragon, maybe. why it feels close to fear, she doesn’t know. she gets like this sometimes with beau, too, when she says something that jester can tell she didn’t mean for her to hear, something she could press in on with her thumbs, peel away at until she finds the truth. but she never does, just sits with her throat scratchy with something a little like fear and lets the moment be dragged away by the seconds that follow, pulling back towards silence like waves back down the shore.

“here,” yasha says, and reaches for her hand. “maybe this first.”

“okay.”

she watches yasha pull their laced hands between them. yasha’s the only person who runs anywhere near as cold as jester, but she’s still warm by comparison, hand almost engulfing jester’s.

so much strength, yasha has, held back for them. for her, in this moment. kept gentle. that’s the real strength, she thinks. she squeezes yasha’s hand, and yasha squeezes back, and she makes up her mind.

“can i kiss you, now?”

yasha blinks again. “yes.”

and, you know, she just sort of does it. reaches with her other hand for yasha’s face and leans up and just kind of stays there.

maybe it’s not the best kiss ever, but sinking into the still moment of it, the warmth, the love for yasha that’s so bright in her chest it feels like her heart is branding the inside of her ribs every time it beats, it feels about as good as anything could ever make her feel, she thinks.

when yasha pulls away after a long moment, her hand stays cupped in the air until yasha covers it with one of her own, laces their fingers and guides them both down. she keeps her eyes closed for a long moment, and then smiles at jester.

“thank you.”

“is that— do people usually say that after they kiss? i’ve never read that anywhere.”

“oh—” yasha says, still a little pink. “maybe not.”

“oh, but!” and jester squeezes her hands again where they’re still curled together between them. “who cares what people usually do? i— thank you, too. it was nice to kiss someone when i actually wanted to, you know. and you’re a good kisser. better than fjord.”

she’s never seen yasha blush before, not like this; she ducks her head, a little, dipping away from jester’s gaze and then looking back up anyway through the loose curtain of her hair. “if beau does not want to kiss you, then perhaps she is not as smart as she seems. you are, you know—” she pauses. “she is missing out on quite a bit.”

“oh— you, too!” there’s a second that passes, watching a hail of dust drift in the light of a nearby lamp, ethereal and lazy, and then jester giggles. “oh, beau really _is_ missing out, isn’t she?”

“yes,” yasha says. “but i think maybe she is just afraid. i am, too.”

“me, too. or, i was until now.”

she calls beau, then, still holding yasha’s hand and kicking her feet out over the ledge and counting on her other fingers.

“—on my way back, she’s not around. figures. you and yash find anything fun to do?”

she looks over at yasha. in another city, being high up like this would have the wind billowing her hair into a stream behind her, and she’d look all elegant and messy-perfect like in books. but the air is still, here, heavy with the scent of stone, and yasha’s hair curtains her face. she doesn’t mind, prefers it this way, even— with it still, it’s like this moment is encased in resin, preserved to recall later in perfect clarity.

she burns another spell. they’re on vacation, and if anything goes wrong, well, she’s got yasha. _i’ve got yasha_ , she thinks, and casts.

“uh, yeah, we were kissing.” this one, she doesn’t have to count.

there’s a pause. beau’s voice comes back just a little shaky, like she’s unsure, like she’s walking faster now. “oh yeah? should’ve invited me. i’m on my way, don’t, uh, don’t do anything _too_ fun without me.”

_she sounds earnest_ , jester thinks, _when she means to joke sometimes_. beau thinks it still flusters her, but she’s been watching, you know? and she can tell beau means it, that she’s afraid to sound like it.

“what did she say?”

yasha looks almost worried, like she’s trying not to let herself be. jester squeezes her hand, and she squeezes back immediately.

“she was sad we didn’t invite her.”

“really?” there’s another moment where, jester imagines, the heavy and hopeful thud of her heart matches yasha’s, the two of them looking out over the liber disk, waiting for beau in more ways than one.

“yeah. she said she’ll be back soon.”

“oh. what should we do until then?”

the thought of kissing again is overwhelming at first, almost dizzying. she thinks of beau coming back and finding them that way, leaving again before either of them see, and the image is wrong in her mind. instead, she just tilts her head and tips it against yasha’s arm, and they look out over the city for a while in this warm, fuzzy quiet.

and if jester’s tail curls a little around yasha’s arm, well, there’s no one else to see it.

after a little while she sees the shape of beau moving smoothly towards the inn, up the spiral of the liber disk— she can tell it’s beau because she’s leaping from pillar ledge to pillar ledge instead of walking, keeping low.

she’s watched beau move before— watched her a lot— and her movements are still graceful, but there’s a hurriedness to them that feels different.

somehow, it reminds her of the shaky feeling she gets when she returns home and runs to hug mama, this threadbare, reckless motion towards something beloved.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm @seafleece on tumblr! come say hello


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